Russian Writers I Have Known - A Slavist's (Light-Hearted) Testimony

A guest lecture by Robert Porter, Emeritus Professor of Slavonic Studies at the University of Glasgow

In this lecture Robert Porter recounts some of his meetings with Russian writers and reflects on the importance of literature, especially Russian literature in the latter half of the 20th century. He will refer to such writers as Andrei Siniavskiii, Vladimir Voinovich, Evgenii Popov and Zinovii Zinik. There will also be allusion to such classics as Pasternak and Solzhenitsyn. He concludes with a summary of his own values and prejudices as a reader and critic.

Rober Porter studied Russian and some Czech at the University of Leeds and was a lecturer (and eventually professor) at The University of Bristol for 25 years, before being appointed to the Chair of Slavonic Studies at the University of Glasgow in 1999. His publications include: Four Contemporary Russian Writers (Berg 1989), Russia's Alternative Prose (Berg 1994), Seven Soviet Poets (Blackwell 1998, reprinted by Bristol Classical Press 2000), Solzhenitsyn's "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" (Bristol Classical Press 1997) and An Introduction to Twentieth-Century Czech Fiction (Sussex Academic Press 2001).